TY - CHAP
T1 - The Curse of Enthusiasm
T2 - William Lovell and Modern Violence
AU - Johnson, Laurie R
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - The essay reads Ludwig Tieck's novel William Lovell (1795-1796) against the background of eighteenth-century faculty psychology in order to make a case for the existence of "male hysteria" around 1800. This is a broad personality dilemma with specific behavioral manifestations, and with parallels to contemporary conditions such as "melancholy" or "enthusiasm", with its subset of "hysteria". The combination of William Lovell's hysterical psychophysical "type" and his perceived victimization at the hands of others -- lovers, friends, brothers, fathers, and secret societies -- proves deadly and puts a very modern from of violence on display. At the same time, uncanny repetitions of previously repressed, frightening phenomena, provides a model for living with and through modern violence. It also illuminates the symptoms endured by individuals in a culture collectively vicitimized, as it were, by modernity as a grand conspiracy.
AB - The essay reads Ludwig Tieck's novel William Lovell (1795-1796) against the background of eighteenth-century faculty psychology in order to make a case for the existence of "male hysteria" around 1800. This is a broad personality dilemma with specific behavioral manifestations, and with parallels to contemporary conditions such as "melancholy" or "enthusiasm", with its subset of "hysteria". The combination of William Lovell's hysterical psychophysical "type" and his perceived victimization at the hands of others -- lovers, friends, brothers, fathers, and secret societies -- proves deadly and puts a very modern from of violence on display. At the same time, uncanny repetitions of previously repressed, frightening phenomena, provides a model for living with and through modern violence. It also illuminates the symptoms endured by individuals in a culture collectively vicitimized, as it were, by modernity as a grand conspiracy.
U2 - 10.1163/9789042032958_006
DO - 10.1163/9789042032958_006
M3 - Chapter
T3 - Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik
SP - 91
EP - 114
BT - Contemplating Violence
A2 - Engelstein, Stefani
A2 - Niekerk, Carl
PB - Rodopi
CY - Amsterdam
ER -